Little known fact: The compact disc was first perfected by Sony. The standard length of all subsequent compact discs was determined by the "perfect" piece of music-- Beethoven's Ninth, apparently as performed by the prisoners of Bando. Our dad also has a nifty photo book from Bando, including a nifty shot of our young grandpa waving a violin. Said violin currently resides in my home. Maybe Beker will play it.

Grandpa was an interesting feller. He was a sort of poet/philosopher/businessman who gave his fortune away to help rescue some 28,000 refugees during WWII. Apparently somebody's written a movie script about the whole rescue operation, focussing though mostly on one of the other rescuers, a Japanese diplomat named Sugihara.

Thanks for digging all that up.

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